Category: Company News

Approachable Finance have recently acquired and moved into a new office – we are now situated on the main street of Cross Hills making it easier than ever to see our clients current and new.

Our new address is: 24 Main Street, Cross Hills BD20 8TF

If you are familiar with the Cross Hills area, then you probably have heard of the very succussful florist, Anne Russell, after 20 years of running the shop she decided it was time to retire and spend more time with family. We bought the shop from her and set about renovating the space into a modern and spacious office. 

The former florist looks different now as we opened the space by knocking down the middle supporting wall and blocked up the door behind The first picture below was taken before Christmas and the building needed time to ‘settle’ as the wall had probably been there for over 100 years! 

After much work by our builders, plumbers and electricians the office was ready to have a new window fitted…. As can been seen in the picture, it is a very large space!

After 3 months of renovations, we have managed to transform the former florist into a thoroughly modern office.

If you have any financial queries, please do not hesitate to pop in. We have tea/coffee and biscuits waiting!

Chris Dixon 

Director of Approachable Finance & Approachable Locum Insurance 

Having worked with practice managers for nearly 9 years in reducing insurance costs I have to admit that I am not envious of the challenges they face running or managing a modern medical practice. I am fortunate to have a good relationship with many who explain to me the different challenges they face, often to meet their budgets in an organisation where the ‘goal-posts’ are forever changing. One wonders whether this profession is becoming specialist in its own right and I wonder how long it will be before a University recognises this and creates a degree around the vocation?

However the downside of paddling furiously in any organisation is often things that ‘roll over’ for another year are often the ‘small fish’ to slip through the net and this is where as a financial professional I am concerned. More often or not a review of Surgery and Locum Insurance is seen as a low priority. Often passed to a part time member of staff or a deputy in a wish to clear desks for the most important areas. However in my opinion this results in false economy for the practice and ultimately the patients.

Historically any policy a practice has had for a number of years been with the same provider will suffer from ‘roll over’ and not be competitive. The effect of the premium increasing ever so slightly every year. The other flip side to this is if there has been a claim within those 12 months the insurance company often or not will try and recoup this money at renewal with an increased premium. What one should consider though is that any claim may have been a one off and therefore not affect the risk to a new insurer coming in. A new insurer after all is assessing the risk at the point of application. They will of course take into account past claims however as it has not effected them financially there is every chance they will be able to offer a more competitive premium than your current policy.

For larger practices we could be talking for a group scheme of around 6-10 members (depending on age) anywhere between £5000 – £10000 in premium. Recently a practice in West Yorkshire was paying £18500 per year and we managed to bring the premium down by £8500 by switching to a new provider without sacrificing cover.

The reality is the premiums of both locum and practice insurance are too high not to be reviewed every 12 months at least. There should in my opinion be a considered attempt to get the best value for money a medical practice can get on their insurance’s regardless of how busy they are (whilst not sacrificing quality of cover).

There is also surely a moral obligation for an NHS practice to get the best value of money it can get for the tax payer? It is true to say that the funding for GP Practices is an extremely complicated area with the global sum being made up of various factors. However personally I would much rather money saved on insurance premiums go into other areas of patient care whether that means employing a part time administrator or even a few toys for the waiting room.

At www.GPlocuminsurance.com we do not charge a fee for reviewing a medical practice’s policies. Neither is there any obligation to change. Like any professional financial advisor we offer you independent advice and we then leave it with you to decide what is best for your practice.

The next time your renewal is around (where the current insurer sends the paperwork out as close to the renewal date as possible) think to yourself for the sake of a 5 minute online form isn’t it worth checking your practice is getting the best value for money?

Chris Dixon BSc (Hons)

Director

www.gplocuminsurance.com

We are now offering clients the ability to spread the costs of their insurance payments and locum insurance with Premium Credit Limited (http://www.premium-credit.co.uk).

For25 years Premium Credit Limited has helped businesses and individuals pay for their insurance by spreading the costs over regular instalments, instead of paying the whole premium upfront.

Premium Credit Limited doesn’t just help businesses and individuals spread the cost of their insurance premiums, they also provide the finance to pay annual fees such as professional fees, membership subscriptions, commercial service charges and school fees. Premium Credit Limited has 2 million customers and has achieved advances of £3.7 billion in 2013, processing 25 million Direct Debits.

We are delighted therefore to work with the No.1 Insurance Premium Finance Company in the UK and Ireland.

Chris Dixon BSc (Hons) Dip PFS

Director Approachable Finance (Medical)

Working in financial services you are aware that sometimes that we haven’t had the best of press with certain financial products! Endowments, with profits, PPI etc. It is therefore a real pleasure to be advising on a product, locum insurance, where it meets the needs of your clients and the market place. It is also a real sense of achievement to help medical practices save money on unecessary insurance costs; money that can be reinvested into patient care and essential staffing needs.

Having advised on locum insurance for nearly 8 years I have seen massive changes within this niche industry. Changes I am glad to say have been for the better. 6 year ago I was working for a company who effectively held the monopoly for this type of cover across the UK. In my opinion the policy was insufficient in the level of cover it gave and its premiums were inflated and unfair. Fortunately pretty soon another large company soon started offering this policy at a much more competitive price and 8 years on there are probably 7 or 8 companies like ourselves offering this to the market place.

Locum Insurance is vitally important for any medical practice. It does ‘what it says on the tin’ in the sense it pays for a locum doctor, vet, and medical practitioner in the event they are sick. After all a medical practice cannot close its doors to its customers if someone is ill. Such is the wonder of our NHS! My experience tends to be within the GP industry however we as a company are fortunate to have clients from various health professional companies. In the GP industry specifically it used to be that only the GP Partners would take out this cover either on a group or individual basis. Group cover in my opinion is always better for several reasons. One in most cases it is cheaper but importantly it can be managed centrally, usually by the practice manage,r with their knowledge that each individual has sufficient levels of cover. Often some of these older ‘individual’ plans are woefully inadequate for the costs of employing a locum in 2014. They also do not cover essential absences such as Jury Service, Family cover etc. which are usually standard in a modern policy.

Over the last 8 years there has been a definite trend to now cover all ‘essential’ employees within a medical practice not just the partners. A lot of this has come from GP Practices taking on less partners and employing salaried GP’s who do not have the same responsibilities if off sick. It is therefore in the business’s’ interest to cover these salaried professionals as well as the partners. This also includes essential staff such as Nurse Practitioners and in some cases the Practice Manager themselves.

At GPlocuminsurance.com we are able to act as independent financial advisors. Offering impartial advice on the market place and offer policies from the best providers on the market. Over the last 6 years we have been fortunate to work with many of the companies offering locum insurance and GP locum insurance within the market place. We are therefore perfectly placed to propose policies that will meet individual and practice needs. For a free competitive quote

Chris Dixon BSc (Hons) Dip PFS

Director Approachable Finance (Medical).